“Hush now,” Julian said to the room, not looking away from me. “Let me get through this.”
Soft, wet laughter moved through the room, and then it went quiet.
“I spent a long time certain I wasn’t built for this. I didn’t need anybody. I had my whole life handled, and wanting more than I already had was a problem I solved years ago.”
He held my eyes. “You made a liar out of me.”
A soft laugh moved through the room.
“I’m not going to stand here and pretend I came easy. You were there. But somewhere between lunches at Maple’s, ten-mile runs, and you fighting me to the death over every single thing I tried to do for you, I stopped wanting the life I had before you walked into it. Haven’t wanted it back a single day since.”
A low, warm sound moved through the room as it reached them, one by one.
“You deserve a man who shows up. Who sees you. Who remembers.”
His thumb went over my knuckles.
“And I remember everything, Alyssa. Your first three miles and your last twenty-six. Your favoriteLaw & Order episode. The exact look on your face the first time you believed I wasn’t going anywhere.”
I made a sound I didn’t plan.
My free hand came up over my mouth.
“I’ve been paying attention since the day I met you, and I’m not going to stop.” His voice dropped. “I want to spend the rest of our lives giving you everything you ever talked yourself out of wanting.”
I started sobbing and he let go of one of my hands and reached into his pocket. Then he was going down. Bending onto one knee on his own living room floor. And the bottom dropped out of everything.
I was shaking. Both hands at my mouth. I could feel the tears running down over my fingers and I didn’t touch them. Everything at the edges of me had gone to a blur of color and sound, and the whole center of it was Julian, down on one knee, looking up at me with no fear anywhere on his face, holding a ring that caught the light and threw it back out.
“You and Micah are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” His voice held, but I watched his throat move. “I’ve spent my whole life making sure everybody I love has what they need, and I never once let myself want anything back. Until you.” He didn’t look away from me. “I want you. Alyssa Dionne Carter. Will you marry me?”
I tried to say it and nothing came. My throat had closed around the size of it. So I nodded, hard, fast, both hands still pressed over my mouth. And then I finally got the word out, undone.
“YES!”
He caught my left hand and managed to slide the ring on despite all my shaking.
The room exploded. Julian was up off that floor, and I crashed into him, kissing him, then pressed against his chest with my face in his neck and his arms locked all the way around me, holding me up, because I don’t think my legs were doing it. He pressed his mouth to the top of my head. His heart was beating as hard as mine.
Around us it was pandemonium. Simone sobbing. Taryn screaming. A glass knocked over somewhere. Uncle Reggie’s voice booming something. And then Raschad’s hand landed flat between my shoulder blades and pressed down once, hard, and I understood every single thing my little brother wanted to say.
Then something crashed into us both at knee height. I looked down at Micah, face tipped all the way up, eyes huge, looking between Julian and me and back like he was checking his own answer.
“Does this mean you’re my dad now?”
I lost it. The tears back in full force. Julian let go of me and crouched all the way down to him. Eye to eye. Hands on his shoulders.
“If you want me to be,” he said. “I’d love that.”
Micah paused for one whole second, dead serious. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. You’d be the BEST dad!” Then he spun around and tore off to find Zhaire as if he’d just settled what we were having for dinner.
And everyone in the room lost whatever composure they had left.
epilogue: bring him home
alyssa
Julian wokeme up with kisses. Long, slow, intentional kisses that had become our morning ritual, pulling me up from sleep.